Wot so funee? The Raised Eyebrow of Incredulity and the Spanx

Like a lot of little girls, Roo is quite keen on prinking and preening infront of the mirror, which is fine – with supervision, otherwise this happens. So, when I am dolling myself up to go out, or even just putting on some mascara and lipstick so I don’t look like a corpse on the school run, she can usually be found hovering nearby.

Last Saturday, Ross and I went to a wedding. We didn’t take the children but got ready at home before dropping them with their grandparents. I wore a grey mini dress, with thick tights and my ridiculous burgundy platform wedges which are almost impossible to walk in but that I love nonetheless. The tights I wore don’t fit amazingly well, and to stop them falling down, I tend to squeeze into my Spanx and hoik them up, superhero style, over my tights.

Ruby thought this was both amusing and perplexing. We had a conversation that went like this:

“Mummy, I have to tell you, you’ve put your knickers on over your tights. Did you know?”

“Ruby, my observant little princess, I have to tell you, they are not actually knickers”

Her voice goes all high pitched and her eyes widen. I think I’ve just blown her mind, “Not knickers? What are they then? And why do they go up to your boobies?”

Just so you know, I don’t have boobs I can tuck into my underwear just yet, my Spanx have an enormous panel to hold everything in.

“They are special things called Spanx, love”

“What do they do?”

“They hold in all your wobbly bits”.

At this point in our conversation, something happened. Ruby’s right eyebrow raised slightly. So very slightly, in fact, that you’d be forgiven for missing it. But I know my daughter, and I saw that minuscule twitch of incredulity.

And just incase I had missed it, she hammered the last nail into the coffin containing any dignity I had at that moment, with this:

Oh lord how did women survive before Spanx. Just you wait, it’ll be her turn before she knows it – then it’ll be you smirking at her wobbly bits as you sit in your big grey knickers with a “couldn’t-care-less” attitude, a case of gin, and a box of Roses ;)

I admit to not owning Spanx – mainly having reached the point of not caring that much when going out. However, the Cheetah Keeper pointing at me as I was about to dash into the shower and going “is that boob called Pete?” was a particularly priceless moment…